Two Years Later

It's hard to believe, but two years ago today, I posted the first article here on Such Moving Pictures.  I started off with a slightly sappy, extremely earnest post titled Such Love, about how starting this blog was almost out of my hands, a necessity considering how much I wanted to talk about movies, how many movies drove me to tears or peals of laughter, how I hoped someday to makes movies that did the same thing.

Last year, on this day, I posted an update titled (surprise, surprise) One Year Later, reflecting on my first year as a (mostly) regular blogger.  I lamented how lazy I had become in the summer months, and how I hoped to become more disciplined.  That hope materialized, largely because of a significant redesign I embarked on last autumn, which bore the look that you're currently staring at (if you're reading this in the present or the near future... or if I just get super lazy and never revamp again).

Such Moving Pictures has flourished in the past year, and for that, I am incredibly grateful to all of my faithful readers, as well as the newcomers or occasional guests who peruse these pages from time to time.  Readership has soared in the past year, with more traffic on certain days than had come through in entire months when Such Moving Pictures was but a fluffy little hatchling, testing out its wings and being all adorable in its stupidity.

There are two significant happenings that I want to reminisce about that I am very grateful for.

The first was the invitation I received from the kind folks at Warner Bros. to take part in their Blu-ray Elite program, an invitation that came because of their interest in my blog (and particularly in my coverage of (500) Days of Summer last winter).  For the first few months of the year, I received shipments of Blu-rays ranging from classics like Casablanca, Citizen Kane, and The Wizard of Oz to recent blockbusters like The Dark Knight and Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows.  It was a thrill to open those packages every week, and I was honored that they thought Such Moving Pictures was a worthy avenue through which to encourage the populace to embrace the Blu-ray medium.  As for me, I'll never buy a DVD again after tasting such clear Blu skies.

The second significant event that still thrills me to think about was having my review of The Cabin in the Woods featured on Awards Daily, my favorite movie website.  Sasha Stone and Ryan Adams do incredible work over there, and I've learned much from their beautifully written essays, reviews, and commentary on movies throughout the year and, especially, awards season.  To be featured on their site was an incredible pleasure.

So I thank you, reader, and I thank Warner Bros. and Awards Daily for providing highlights in my blogging year.  As usual, these summer months were filled with all sorts of obsessions, mostly in the television realm, as I gobbled up Breaking Bad, Louie, Game of Thrones, and Girls.  As not usual, I'm already back in school, wrapping up my final year as a Film Studies student at the Ohio State University.  I'm fortunate to be in all film classes this year, so there may be some posts about sci-fi, horror, and transitional periods in film as the year goes on.

Also, expect continued My Classic Summer posts, even as summer ends for sweet, autumnal bliss.  I didn't manage to get to as many classics as I wanted to this summer, but I'll be watching some for class (including James Cameron's Terminator movies) and others on my own time, and I love sharing my experiences of discovering these revered classics for the first time with all of you.

Thanks for reading, and I do hope you'll continue to do so.
Clayton